Game 69 - Mets 11, Cardinals 0

I could talk about Fernando Nieve moving to 3-0 with another quality performance, even though they took him out after six innings...

Then again, they were up 7-0 at the time.

How about the big bats showing up for a blowout win? Granted, they were facing Bobby Thompson or someone like that. Point being, it wasn't Chris Carpenter or Adam Wainwright...

The bigger point is without our resident college basketball expert, Mr. Kris, this site won't be able to give its readers (all two of you and Thanks Mom for your support) a quality 2009 NBA Draft coverage.

I can direct all you NBA fans to Disciples of Cylde for their thoughts on it. Only problem with that is the fact that most everyone that pods that cast hates college basketball.

Let's start at the top with the Clippers and Blake Griffin. As someone who actually watches and loves college basketball, I can say that I actually never watched Oklahoma play. I heard about Griffin during the year and it only led to my belief that big men from the Big 12 are usually highly overrated. Biggest case in point is Marcus Fizer, an Iowa State product who led his team to the Elite 8 with Teaneck's own Mike "Boogeyman" Nurse and completely fizzed out at the next level.

However, when I talked to Kris about Griffin, he said "He's got the athletic ability of Amare (of the Suns) with another 25 pounds of muscle. He's an athletic freak."

I hear all that and watched a brief draft preview on ESPN and the thing they said is Griffin needs to work on his post game and defense. When I hear that, I hear he'll prosper in a quality team environment. That is not the Clippers, so I'll stand by this statement - Tyler Hansborough will have a better career than Griffin.

Tyler may be 24 and not have a lot of "upside", but he's also gonna hit a 15-foot jumper, he's gonna get to the foul line, can defend his position and will give you nothing but effort every time you call his number.

In my opinion, this draft will fill rosters with rotation guys and average players deep on the bench. I don't see any breakthrough players here. Hasheem Thabeet is tall and that's about it. He'll block shots and grab tall person rebounds, but is that worth a top 5 pick?

Stephen Curry is gonna be a great player in the right system. Kris said he reminds him of Hersey Hawkins. A quality guard you can't leave alone behind the line that won't hurt you with stupid moves on or off the court.

I'm the wrong person to ask about Jonny Flynn, mostly because he went to Syracuse. But he is a scorer and can push the ball from the point. Drawback is he's barely 6-1 and hasn't been asked to play man to man defense from that 2-3 zone. But a reported 40-inch vertical makes him an interesting pick wherever he goes.

I'm not sold on Jreu Holliday, Gerald Henderson or DeJuan Blair, mostly because the Pitt power forward is 6-7 and won't be able to push around players in the post as easily as he did in the Big East.

I keep hearing how Ty Lawson is gonna drop down to the middle of the first round. I'm curious why. Was he too good leading the Tar Heels to the national championship? Was it too obvious that UNC struggled without him at the point? Did he not show a great ability to get to the hole, push the ball and distribute? If Flynn's height isn't an issue, why would Lawson's?

As I said before, this draft will be full of players that will fill roster spots for years but I don't think anyone here will be a All-Star game lock. Maybe a couple in the Slam Dunk contest or 3-point shootout, but the actual game? I think not.

I think I would like to find a bar or television set with Extra Innings Thursday afternoon when the Mets-Cards series ends with Carpenter vs. Santana. Can't wait to watch the highlights on the 6 p.m. ScoreCenter.

More importantly, it seems that will be the time to hear about all the trades as NBA GM's realize there's nothing much to gain from this draft and move pieces around with what they already have...

Wow. I almost got through an entire post about the draft and didn't mention Ricky Rubio. Here's the main thing about him, regardless of where he goes - HE'S 18 YEARS OLD AND HAS BEEN PLAYING PROFESSIONALLY FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS.

While Brandon Jennings went to Italy for the money and because he wouldn't have qualified to attend Arizone, Rubio has been playing against grown men for the past four years.

He may be thin, but he's still got time to grow and work out. The biggest thing will be getting out of his current contract, but someone will get it done and he'll be lighting up highlight reels in the fall.